Put simply: Americans have the laws they have because they were written down by the folks Americans voted for. We can debate forever about how we're mostly made up of sheeple and the election process is biased and all the other things that get in the way of pure, fun-loving democracy, but that doesn't mean we just get to decide at an individual level which laws we don't think are rational and then break them.
It's not a valid legal defense in the legal system where that law exists, obviously. But that doesn't mean we should approve of the enforcement of bad laws. That's the Nuremberg defense. If a law is bad, the law should be changed, but it's also bad for the law to be enforced, and not bad to break the law.
> but that doesn't mean we just get to decide at an individual level which laws we don't think are rational and then break them.
Again, I completely disagree. You're making a moral argument that people ought to obey all laws. I find that argument repulsive. What do you think about civil disobedience?
Civil disobedience is almost never undertaken at the individual level, and more specifically it is never successful at the individual level. It is an exercise undertaken by a society. Society making judgements about the rationality of laws and then using civil and legislative means to affect change on the laws themselves is healthy and valid.
By contrast, making these judgements at the individual level opens up a whole world of danger, because our individual feelings on what is and is not rational vary as widely as our viewpoints on everything else.
What do you mean by "feasible"? I am certainly capable of deciding which laws I think are rational and choosing which laws to obey.
> Civil disobedience is almost never undertaken at the individual level, and more specifically it is never successful at the individual level. It is an exercise undertaken by a society.
You seem to be conflating civil disobedience with organized protest or resistance. Civil disobedience is just a deliberate refusal to obey a rule one believes to be a bad rule. It doesn't have to be organized.
You seem to have a disdain for all individual discretion about rules and laws. I disagree, and strongly. Only individuals act, and I think only individuals have the ability and responsibility to choose how to act.
Who's being irrational here? If a law is "unnecessary and ill-conceived," why is it irrational to complain about the law being enforced? I think that's very rational. I think he should be able to explicitly say, even advertise "I will create a secret compartment in your vehicle where you can put drugs," without risking any legal trouble. 24 years in prison is too harsh a sentence. Spending the night in jail would be too harsh a sentence. A $50 fine would be too harsh a sentence.
> Do the people in this thread think that getaway drivers on bank robberies should get off scot free because driving a car is not itself a crime?
No, because laws prohibiting robbery and theft are reasonable laws.